Mexico Sends Top Official to California Help Illegal Aliens Avoid Deportation

File Photo: Alfredo Estrella / AFP / Getty11 Sep 2017Sacramento, CA

Mexico is sending a top cabinet-level diplomat to illegal alien-friendly California to help Mexican citizens living in the U.S. illegally avoid deportation in a post-DACA environment.

President Trump’s efforts to enforce immigration law and build a wall along the border have galvanized the Mexican government into action, and according to an Associated Press story, its top priority is to protect Mexican citizens living in the United States.

First stop, California, the center of anti-Trump resistance:

Mexico’s Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Videgaray is expected to meet Monday with Gov. Jerry Brown and state legislative leaders in California’s capital. He will later head to Los Angeles to announce support for young immigrants whose protection from deportation is being terminated by Trump and meet with business and community leaders. He also plans a trip to Washington later in the week, officials at the Los Angeles consulate said.

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On Monday, Videgaray will meet with some of the [illegal aliens] currently protected under the program that Trump is rescinding. The Obama administration began the program in 2012 to let [illegal aliens] brought to the country as children work even though they don’t have legal status here.

He will also discuss ways the Mexican government can support these [illegal aliens]. The country last week lamented Trump’s decision to yank the program and announced plans to create a special job bank for those affected and support their education.

Despite acknowledging that DACA is an internal domestic issue for the U.S., Mexico has promised to lobby Congress for passage of a DACA-like bill, while handing out legal assistance to all DACA recipients who wish to remain in the U.S.

In an interview with The Hill, Mexican Ambassador Gerónimo Gutiérrez says that he believes U.S.-Mexican relations are improving, and hints that with the public relations campaign he is waging, the wall is unlikely to ever be built, and if it is, that Mexico would never agree to pay for it. “One for us is clearly the issue of the wall, or paying for the wall. But once those red lines are clear, we understand better each other’s priorities, we do try to find common ground.”

Gutiérrez failed to mention that money sent back to Mexico by its citizens living in the U.S. (both legally and illegally), also known as “remittances,” is a huge boost to Mexico’s economy. Remittances to Mexico topped $28 billion in 2016, even surpassing oil revenues to the country, according to an NPR report.

The last time a top Mexican official came to California to meet with and lobby the legislature was when Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto visited in 2014. He was met by a large crowd of Americans demanding the release of American Marine Sargent Andrew Tahmooressi from a Mexican jail, where he had been held after accidentally crossing the border with guns in his vehicle.